"Knowledge (of) the scale of our capability would raise
public awareness generating unwelcome publicity for us and our
political masters."--Classified UK NSA document

"To approve such a program, the Court must have every
confidence that the government is doing its utmost to ensure that
those responsible for implementation fully comply with the Court's
orders. The Court no longer has such confidence."--U.S.
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
Order, p. 12, 3-9-2009

***

by rob kall

For those alarmed by the steady growth of lawless, violent and
authoritarian U.S. Executive power for the last 50 years, the
events of the past few months have been exciting. The emergence of
a de facto coalition of progressives and conservatives opposing
the National Defense Authorization
Act law giving the Executive the right to unilaterally
detain or execute American citizens without a trial,
and NSA mass surveillance of phone
and Internet data, has been unprecedented, and offers the first
hope in 70 years that Executive power can be curbed

The most important development has been the public and
congressional reaction to President Obama's proposal to strike
Syria. A huge majority of the American people opposed even a
limited military action by the Executive Branch. Reading the polls,
the President decided to seek congressional authorization for a
limited military action. For the first time in living memory,
Congress clearly opposed him. It is too soon to say what this will
mean for the future, but the implications clearly extend beyond
just this particular strike or President.

The main arena besides the Middle East where the issue of the
Executive Branch vs. Congress and the American people will play out
in coming months will concern attempts to limit not only Executive
surveillance of innocent Americans, but its other assaults on the
very foundation of democracy itself.

The fundamental issue involved amidst the ongoing cascade of revelations about NSA
wrongdoing is this: what must be done to roll back the Executive
Branch's creation of a surveillance state, which is just one more
major economic crisis or 9/11--as even centrists like Bob Woodward and Tom Friedman warn--from becoming a
police-state.

Most of the focus until now has been on trying to absorb the
dimensions of the surveillance state we have suddenly learned we
are living in since June 6 . But it is now time to focus on
the actions needed to end its assaults on democracy.

This is not a simple question, either politically or
technically. Politically, it is impossible to envision ending the
surveillance state without a broad left-right coalition both in
Congress and among the public devoted to doing so. But it will be
difficult to maintain a coalition of progressives and Tea Partiers,
liberals and conservatives, who neither trust nor respect one
another--particularly when fought by an Executive that will hit
back against attempts to control it with everything it has.

The technical questions are even trickier. How does Congress
write and pass laws to prevent Executive Agencies from undertaking
surveillance and population control measures when, to paraphrase
Congressman Keith Ellison, "Congress
doesn't know what it doesn't know"? How can Congress control
Executive wrongdoing when Executive officials invoke the mantra of
national security to avoid providing it with information?

Had Edward Snowden not risked life imprisonment or worse to
reveal that the U.S. Executive Branch has created a surveillance
state, we would still know virtually nothing about it. The ranking
Senate and House Intelligence committee chairs, Dianne Feinstein
and Mike Rogers, would still be covering up Executive wrongdoing,
and even those members angered at its criminality would still be
muzzled from saying anything. The Judiciary would still not only be
rubberstamping Executive actions, but expanding Executive Branch
power. The mass media would still be routinely conveying its
denials of wrongdoing to the American people whenever the issue
arose.

At present, when the heads of the Senate or House Intelligence
Committees assure us that they are overseeing the Executive, what
they mean is that they are dutifully repeating Executive talking
points on documents provided them with the words "top secret"
stamped on them, but only consisting of what Executive agencies
want them to know. They have no means of independent oversight,
which means they have no meaningful oversight. And the judiciary
has not only acknowledged this, but said they no longer have "confidence" in the
Executive.

If even the secret FISA Court no longer has confidence in the
Executive, neither can the rest of us. During the 1960s, the FBI
regularly used its secret intelligence to blackmail and threaten
not only activists but politicians, presidents and Martin Luther
King, Jr. As Internet security expert C.J. Radford has written, "the issue is what happens if this
data, and these capabilities, fall into the wrong hands. A
malicious government employee, a change in government, court
rulings, regulations or leadership could all open this information,
and these capabilities, up to cross agency analysis, open use, or
criminal activity."

That is, not only can this information be misused by government
employees, but private sector companies, criminals and foreign
governments as well. With the NSA spending 70% of its funding on contracts with
private sector firms, which are even more corruptible than
government agencies, this is a matter of urgent concern.